This invention relates to gathering, processing and providing information from databases related to items such as sporting events, recreational activities, and availability of facilities, and in particular, to computer based interaction with individuals interested in such items within a desired physical proximity to the individuals.
Persons who reside in a community often wish to learn of local activities, sporting events or other events, or facilities (xe2x80x9cASEFxe2x80x9d) that they could participate in (or use), either as an active participant or as a spectator. The ASEF is typically offered by individuals, entities, associations, or other organizations in the recreation, leisure, sports and fitness industries. Such persons could be individuals from a home, business, or other location, or providers of ASEF, such as city recreation staff personnel, or entities or organizations who are interested parties or providers of ASEF.
It is difficult for the average person to easily search and learn all activities, sporting events or other events, and facilities of interest within their desired proximity range. It is also difficult for the average person to determine (within the desired proximity of just their immediate community or a mileage range) the sport event result, such as standings in a softball league or the winner of a xe2x80x9cfun run.xe2x80x9d
To learn this information, the person must presently search many diverse and different catalogs, lists, or other resources, and they must know in advance which lists to locate and then search. These catalogs may be available via written form or available on a global network such as the internet. The need to access multiple separate lists means that a person cannot easily determine, using a unified method, all of the local activities, events, classes, programs, facilities, or special events within a specified nearness or proximity to the persons home, business, or other location. The ability to identify and specify by proximity is necessary, as persons are typically interested only in events within a specified proximity, and are uninterested in events being held a long distance away.
In theory, a central list could be constructed by some centralized entity, however, it has historically been impossible to do so. The reason is that people typically wish to learn of appropriate activities, events, or facilities that are within a desired proximity to their home, business, or typical location, such as within a certain mileage range. There has been no common method that various entities could use so that a person could easily determine the proximity of their location to the location of the ASEF.
Another barrier to solving this problem is that various organizations are located in different locations throughout a community, they maintain and keep their own lists of ASEF, and they have not historically had any method to identify their ASEF entries with a location identifier that is a standardized method that could be used by many entities, organizations, or persons. A person does not intuitively xe2x80x9cknowxe2x80x9d the proximity or distance from their location to every other organization and places where ASEF are located.
For example, the list of activities, events, or facilities that are managed or offered by the xe2x80x9cFutureville city recreation departmentxe2x80x9d typically has had no connection to the list managed by the xe2x80x9cFutureville private health clubxe2x80x9d in a community, or a private fitness or sports coordinator who might offer xe2x80x9cfun runs,xe2x80x9d races, or other sporting or athletic events somewhere either in xe2x80x9cFuturevillexe2x80x9d or within a desired mileage range.
A missing piece has been a method for all entities to identify the location of their ASEF in a common method which can then be searched, retrieved, and limited by a proximity basis (such as within XX miles) by persons.
Software products such as the Yahoo internet search engine, available on the internet at http://www.yahoo.com (and other internet search engines), have not included a common method for specifying the precise location of where the ASEF are held and also not provided any ability for the person or user to be able to determine distance/proximity. There has also not been any provision made for the user to specify their desired distance or proximity, except for very crude techniques such as also entering a city name or other identifier, which cannot determine proximity with any degree of accuracy or reliability.
Software products such as MapQuest, available on the internet at http://www.mapquest.com (and other mapping programs), do not have any provision to either calculate distance based on proximity from the person, or to conduct a xe2x80x9cgeneral and non-specific searchxe2x80x9d for a large comprehensive list of all ASEF within a specified proximity or mileage range.
Software products developed specifically for the recreation and park industry such as RecWare PRO, provided by Active.com of La Jolla, Calif., Class, provided by Escom Software Ltd. of Burnaby, British Columbia, RecTrac, provided by Vermont Systems of Essex Junction, Vt., ParcSoft, provided by HTE of Lake Mary, Fla., and AEK, provided by Klawitter Assoc. of Chicago, Ill., have previously only included the ability to identify xe2x80x9cfixed locationsxe2x80x9d for activities, events, or facilities, such as the name of a community center or a physical street address (or equivalent). This has prevented any ability to do a xe2x80x9cproximity searchxe2x80x9d within a specified range. An additional limiting factor is that many of these products have historically been designed only for xe2x80x9cdesktop PCxe2x80x9d usage, and the data or ASEF that they track or manage has not been commonly available via a global network such as the internet. This has prevented persons using the internet to be able to locate information on ASEF, let alone determine all ASEF of interest within a specified proximity or mileage radius.
Software products developed specifically to handle ASEF for municipal, university, or private health or fitness clubs such as Karch, provided by Karch International of McLean, Va., CheckFree, provided by Checkfree of Norcross, Ga., CSI, provided by CSI Software of Houston, Tex., and Aphelion, provided by Aphelion Software of Houston, Tex., have previously only included the ability to identify xe2x80x9cfixed locationsxe2x80x9d for activities, events, or facilities, such as the name of a fitness center or a physical street address (or equivalent). This has prevented any ability to do a xe2x80x9cproximity searchxe2x80x9d within a specified range. An additional limiting factor is that many of these products have historically been designed only for xe2x80x9cdesktop PCxe2x80x9d usage, and the data or ASEF that they track or manage has not been commonly available via a global network such as the internet. This has prevented persons using the internet from being able to locate information on ASEF, let alone determine all ASEF of interest within a specified proximity or mileage radius.
While the methods known in the art provide much useful information to public users of the services, they do not completely meet the needs of these users. Specifically, a need exists for a service which identifies ASEF of interest to a user within a desired proximity relative to a user.
In addition to the information presently available by prior art systems relating to services, activities, schedules and locations of recreational, sporting and similar activities, and other ASEF, this invention contemplates storing the latitude and longitude of the location of each such item in a server""s database. When a client user, also called a requester, interrogates the server with a query/request for information on a specific item, the user can also indicate the user""s location. The server then not only supplies the presently available servicing information, but also calculates the distance from the client user""s location to each of the items specific to the user""s request. This computation utilizes a conventional navigational program that accepts as input the latitudes and longitudes of two separate locations, and calculates the distance between the locations. If the client user requests that the item lie within a given proximity distance from his location, the server""s program only outputs those items within the user""s requested proximity.
In a first embodiment of this invention, the server computer already has stored the location information for the user, based on prior information provided by the user. In a second embodiment, the client user""s latitude/longitude database is not maintained at the server, but each client user has his own latitude and longitude data stored in his desk top computer, input terminal or other appliance provided along with a query. The client user""s computer can also include the program for computing distances, and uses longitude/latitude data downloaded from the server for the requested items to compute the distances. Alternatively, the user can send position information to the server computer and the server computer can run the program to compute distances from the user to the items. The user""s also has the capability of limiting the displayed results to those items within the user""s specified proximity.
The data for latitude and longitude for both the server""s providers and items, and the client users"" locations may be determined by reading the coordinates from geographic charts, such as the U.S. coast, national geographical survey and Geodetic charts, or determining the coordinates directly at a given location by use of a global positioning system xe2x80x9cGPS,xe2x80x9d receiver.
Accordingly, a primary object of the present invention is to provide a system which includes information about local activities, sporting events or other events, or facilities (xe2x80x9cASEFxe2x80x9d) including detailed information about the ASEF item and the precise location of the ASEF item. A user can request a particular ASEF item and specify a location in terms of a proximity from a location at which the user is located. The system thus provides to the user items matching the user""s criteria and which are within the desired proximity from the user.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an ASEF item locating system which allows a user to identify items within a desired proximity range from the user.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an ASEF item locator system which is accessible over a global network of computers such as the internet.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an ASEF item locator service which includes information about items provided by a variety of different entities with location information about each of the items so that a proximity of the items from the user can be determined.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an ASEF item locator system which has information stored therein relating to a location of a group of users so that the users can automatically have items within a desired proximity provided by the system.
Other further objects of the present invention will become apparent from a careful reading of the included drawing figures, the claims and detailed description of the invention.